Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore (9780385538398) (17 page)

“Across the hall is a guest bedroom,” I said. “If you have to come you can go over there and do what you need to do. We have a cleaning lady, at least for a little while longer, so you don't have to straighten up.”

“Maybe, maybe I'll go over there for a little while right now,” he said.

After he was gone I turned off all the lights except for the reading lamp. I went to Theon's night table and rummaged around until I located the one book he had always intended to read but never did,
The Twelve Caesars
, the ancient text about the private and public lives of some of the most powerful men in history.

Theon had that book as a kind of counterbalance to my ever-changing library, but it was more than that. Theon saw himself as some kind of working royalty. He was king of the fuck flicks in the old days when he made a movie every week. Even after his star waned and he began living off my money and fame he acted as if everything centered
around him. The historical work was a kind of talisman for his ego.

I decided to read it for him as an offering to his death.

I had just settled in and opened the book to the preface when Rash came back into the bedroom.

“That was quick,” I said.

“I don't usually watch films like that. My parents thought they were trash and every girlfriend I ever had was too proper to want to see one.”

“You could have watched it with some guys,” I suggested, putting
The Twelve Caesars
to rest on the night table.

“I get nervous around guys even when they're just talking about sex,” he said as he got under the covers.

I cut off the light and turned my back to him. For a long while he lay behind me, motionless.

“Hold me, Rash.”

He curled up behind me, managing to get his arm around me without caressing my breasts. He exhaled with some strength and then did so again. After that his breathing was normal—for a while.

“I have a son,” I said.

“How old is he?”

“Five. He'll be six in December.”

“Where is he?”

“At my stepsister's house.”

“While you go through this funeral stuff?”

“No. He lives with her. My brother Cornell was trying to find me unfit to raise a child when I was pregnant and so Delilah took Edison in.”

“Edison's a nice name.”

Rash managed to say just the right thing even though he wasn't trying.

“It's my father's brother's name. He raised my father and one time, when I was a little girl talking about when I grew up and became a mom, my dad said that the only thing he wanted was if I had a son that I'd name him Edison after my dead uncle.”

“That's the perfect way to honor your father,” Rash said, and I pulled his arms up to my breast.

For a moment he held his breath.

“Um,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Why aren't we having sex?”

“I'm not,” I said. “You have the room across the hall.”

“Uh, okay, but why aren't you?”

“In the last four weeks I've had unprotected sex with at least sixteen men and almost as many women. We all have regular checkups and most of us are professional enough not to work if we think we're sick. But I won't know about my health for sure until at least nine months from my last sexual encounter.

“And even if that wasn't true, you have to know that sex to me is like cornflakes or toothpaste. I don't connect it with love or even mild concern. I don't anticipate sex; I dread it.

“That's why I brought you to bed.”

“Why?”

“Because you're sweet and considerate and I knew from the first minute we talked that you would keep it in your pants and hold me anyway.”

“Um, you know, I think I have to go in the other room for a while again. I'll be back.”

I started counting when Rash got up from the bed. I made it to seventy-eight before he returned and embraced me again.

I could feel his heart thundering against my back.

This made me smile.

“Why?” I whispered.

“Why what?” His voice was husky and deep.

“Why are you staying with me?”

“Because ever since I met you I wanted to see you again. But I thought that you would just smile maybe or say hi. I was hoping that if you came in, you wouldn't walk out after seeing me, and I hoped you'd let me sit at your table.”

I hummed and hugged his hand to my cheek.

“Why do you want me to stay with you?” he asked.

“I told you already … because I want a man to hold me and to hold back at the same time,” I said.

“And you expect this man to hold back for nine months?”

“At least.”

He let go of me then and got out of bed.

“Are you leaving?” the girl inside me asked.

“Just goin' across the hall for a bit.”

He made two more trips to the guest bedroom in the night. I woke up each time he left but fell back to sleep almost immediately. Each time he returned he held me tighter, with more conviction. And each time I felt more and more centered in myself.

When I awoke in the morning we were sleeping across the bed from each other. I leaned over him and tickled the tip of his nose until he opened his eyes.

I felt fresh and happy; he looked like he hadn't slept at all.

“This friendship really is gonna be too hard on you, huh, Rash Vineland?” I opined.

“No.”

That was the first moment of real fear that I'd felt in what seemed like years. It was as if Rash had reached into my chest and grabbed hold of my insides.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. I have to go somewhere.”

“Can I come?”

“No. I have to put on some clothes.”

“Can I watch?”

“No,” I said playfully. “Go out to the kitchen and make us some breakfast.”

Rash could cook. He made cheese omelets and bacon with home fries seasoned with onions, bell peppers, and jalapeños. He even made coffee and served me banana-orange-strawberry juice.

“What would Annabella say about all this?” I asked after he served the meal.

Almost immediately I regretted the question. Rash's face scrunched up and his mouth twisted as if he'd eaten something bitter.

“I can't worry about that,” he said. “I mean, the way I
think about it is, how'd I feel if she did that? But it's not just the doing.”

“No?”

“Uh-uh. The problem is if some guy made her feel the way you do me.”

“How do I make you feel?” I asked, thinking,
Shut up, girl
.

“Like I was floating out in the middle of the ocean,” he said. “Like I could rise up in the sky like evaporation. I mean, it doesn't make any sense but there it is.”

“It's Sunday,” I said. “People have those feelings on Sundays.”

Rash grinned and nodded.

I knew that I had gone too far with him even without having sex.

“Should we stop this now?” I asked.

He got that look again, the one he had the first time in the restaurant when I told him I had to leave.

“I don't want to stop,” he said.

“It might cost you.”

“What am I saving for if not for this?”

“I have your number in my purse,” I said, thinking that there was also a loaded gun in there. “I'll call tonight.”

“Can I have your number too?”

I scribbled it down for him and tore the leaf out of my journal.

He got up and walked to the doorway, then stopped and walked all the way back to kiss my cheek. I didn't kiss him. I knew better.

Rock of Ages House of Worship had grown since I was a little girl. When I was small the church was too: a little mauve-colored bungalow on a big lot at the dead end of a small downtown block. Now it was a stone fortress standing as high as a five-story building, with three thousand seats and twice that many active members. The parking lot was protected by high fences. The driveway had three uniformed guards.

They let my Jaguar into the lot. The chief security man pointed me to one of the few open parking spaces.

I made my way down a flagstone path to the side door of the church. Music was already playing, a huge choir was singing “Jericho,” and the assembled worshipers were on their feet singing along. There were huge stained-glass windows installed side by side down both walls, and a high platform where the choir sang, and an even higher dais where the preacher would give his sermon.

I was wearing a dark blue dress that came down to my calves and slightly lighter blue medium-heeled shoes. My wide-brimmed straw hat was of a fine weave and white in color. I carried a maroon handbag and wore aqua calfskin gloves that I had taken home from a movie I'd made.

I stood in the back looking around the assembled congregation, listening to the music, trying to feel like I belonged.

On the right side of the auditorium I first recognized Newland, my younger brother. He was standing next to my mom. On her other side was Cornell and past him a woman I didn't recognize. Behind them was my father's adopted daughter by an earlier marriage—Delilah—and next to her, singing his heart out, was Edison, my son.

I would have known Eddie if he was a full-grown man, but I only ever saw him on holidays, when I wasn't working.

I made my way over to the Peel clan. I reached past an Asian woman standing on the aisle and touched Newland's shoulder while the room cried out in praise-song. Looking at me, uncomprehending at first, Newland's smile of recognition was a memory that I'd hold dear for the rest of my life.

He whispered something to the small Asian woman and she came out in the aisle, signaling with her hands for me to take her place.

I moved next to Newland and he gave me a one-armed hug.

“Sandy,” he said in my ear. “Mom'll be so happy you're here.”

I glanced at the profile of my mother, who hadn't seen me yet, and saw over her shoulder Cornell's face. He was lighter skinned than Newland and I and of a heavy build. There was some hair on his chin, but not quite a beard, and a scowl for me that had not changed since the first time the police brought me home and my mother spent the night crying.

The song was nearing its high point. I could hear Edison's singing in my ears. I closed my eyes and girded myself for the fights and recriminations, for the forgiveness and the loss that would not be dispelled by my brief return.

The singing was over and we all sat looking up at the seated choir hovered over by the empty sky-blue pulpit.

The gospel group's robes were dark red with cream lapels that went all the way down the front. They sat with
military precision, waiting for the next movement in the Lord's day.

Cornell was staring at me.

My mother realized this and looked my way. Her smile was immediate and she gave me a little wave. She inhaled through her nostrils and held that breath for three or four beats.

I looked away and toward the front of the church. A small woman in ministerial black was making her way, rather inelegantly, up to the platform.

She reminded me of a bug trying to negotiate an unfamiliar vertical climb.

Finally she made it to the podium.

“Good Sunday, brothers and sisters,” she said in a voice that was multitoned, like a jazz trumpet in the hands of a master.

“Good Sunday,” two thousand or more throats murmured and declared.

“I want to thank Brother Elbert and his lovely choir for their singing and Sister Eloise for her organ and this congregation for your voices raised in song and devotion.”

A tremor seemed to go through the audience, a kind of collective hum of satisfaction.

“I know there are many of you out there who come to church each week because you know I don't mess around.…”

Laughter.

“I don't love the sound of my own voice and I don't waste time telling you what you already know. I don't need to tell ya that if you lied this week, or if you cheated someone,
that you sinned. You know if you sinned. You know if you did wrong. You don't need a minister for that.”

“Teach,” someone cried out.

“You don't need a minister to follow you to the den of iniquity and tell you that you shouldn't be there. You don't need me to see you beat your children or your spouse in order for you to know that you did wrong. When you use the Lord's name in vain you got ears to hear it. And when you turn your back to suffering it's not my job to point and say, ‘Look there.' ”

The minister opened her eyes so wide that I could appreciate it from my seat.

“No. That's not my job,” she continued. “You've all been to church before. You've heard all, or nearly all, the stories in the Bible. You know about Sodom and Gomorrah, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Babylon, the pharaohs, Moses, Abraham, and our savior on the cross. You know. I don't have to tell ya about Noah's ark navigating the great flood, or John the Baptist. I don't have to talk about Judas's role at the Last Supper or quote some verse you might not yet have heard. There's a Bible you can read for yourself in a forgotten drawer in your house.…”